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Inspiration
How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?
Coping with success
It’s an old joke: “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Teachers use it inspirationally, sometimes derisively, to motivate students. The punchline is often omitted because everyone knows the answer.
Before the internet made top listings on Spotify a thing, Carnegie Hall was it. If you made it there, you made it. Period.
The punchline is often omitted because everyone knows the answer.
Receiving an invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall became the reason you woke up in the morning, the reason you tried to get into the best schools — often the one right up the street.
Moments of pride
The mug in the picture above is a souvenir from my last trip to New York. My daughter was young, too young to know what it meant, but gifted, nonetheless. She received the golden ticket, an invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall.
Two months later, she and her fellow performers found themselves surrounded by skyscrapers they had only seen in movies, having much difficulty navigating the busy streets of Manhattan — desert creatures don’t get around in concrete jungles, it would seem.
She received the…
